Twenty high-tech solar-powered cars from 10 countries have set off on a 3,000 km (1,860 mile) race across Australia's vast outback in the eighth World Solar Challenge. The race takes the international teams through some of Australia's most forbidding terrain on the main Stuart Highway from Darwin to Adelaide. The top cars race at up to 120 km (74 miles) an hour from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm each day, when the teams camp where they are in the desert. Most of the sliver-shaped, space-age vehicles are single-seaters, but teams can have up to four drivers.
The "Challenge," to design and build a car capable of crossing Australia on the power of daylight, was launched in 1987 and teams and individuals from corporations and universities all over the world participate. Event spokeswoman Rowena Austin said the challenge was an important testing ground for alternative fuel technologies. "It's particularly relevant with the oil price where it is at the moment."
A team from Ashiya University (Osaka, Japan) qualified as the fastest Saturday with its Sky Ace Tiga car, but it is expected to face strong competition from Dutch, Australian, and German-British teams. The Dutch team behind the car Nuna 3 is the favorite after claiming victory in the last two challenges in 2001 and 2003, when it set a record race time of 30 hours and 54 minutes. However, Nuna 3 faces strong challenges from Japan's Sky Ace Tiga, Australia's Aurora 101 (which came second in the last two races), and the German-British HansGo team.
American teams from the University of Michigan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which finished first and third in the North American Solar Challenge in July, are also expected to do well. The French team Sunspeed and its car Jules Verne overcame transport difficulties, which had threatened their participation and set off with the rest.
